No one should be surprised that Merkel and Sarkozy are united against more government spending in Europe.Although both represent socialist nations, their own elections signaled a real, yet relative turn to the right.

Sarkozy was the UMP - right party candidate. He defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal on a platform to shape up France's economy and take a harder line on domestic unrest. Increased government spending was never his MO.

Also, politically center-right, Angela Merkel defeated the former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. She ran on a "reformist" platform and as a supporter of the Iraq war. She accused Schroeder of being anti-American.

So remember that Europeans, during the Bush administration were not unified in an Anti-American stance. During that period both France and Germany elected candidates who were leaning away from socialism.

So it comes as no surprise that while supportive and friendly to President Obama on many fronts - they were not willing to support an expansion of spending as stimulus.

This raises the question -- is the President improving our standing overseas -- or was it really in need of repair?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am and is filed under Martha's Memo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.